Gifts from above

My windows look out on a greenspace filled with a tulip magnolia tree, locust trees, a few yews, and other shrubbery. This is unique for the apartment complex I live in. Most apartments look out at the pond and the apartments on the other side of it.

I treasure the little rabbit, the squirrel and the birds that make this space their home. I even enjoy the fact that quite a few people walk their dogs back here. They are good about picking up after themselves.

I don't mind that people walk through here on their way to the Convenient mart whose back butts up against it.

I am often a little bit less enthralled by the trash people leave in their wake, although we do have a person who walks through and picks it all up periodically.

Then there are the things that come from above and fill me with wonder. Not awe, but confusion type wondering. Like where did the can of McCormick's black pepper come from and why did no one retrieve it? It lay here for nearly a week before the lawn guy drove over it and shredded the metal, leaving only strips of coppery strands in the grass. Or the ball of rubber bands the size of a softball still out there? These seem like things that might be worth picking up, if they were yours.

They aren't mine.

I have three very large ferns hanging above my balcony and one sitting placidly on a table below them. I like things that are alive and move, but require minimal care. These are it. When I sit in my green wicker chair I can gaze up through their fronds and imagine all sorts of things.

But sometimes I am only thinking, who dropped the ball?